Kristen Fernandez, from left, Drew Gurewitz and Jeff Losey, volunteers from Stamp Out Hunger leading sponsor, Farmers Insurance, help unload Ventura County postal trucks during the 2012 Stamp Out Hunger food drive. Courtesy photo.
Due to the success of the 2012 ‘Stamp Out Hunger’ food drive, FOOD Share, Ventura County’s regional food bank, recently added nearly 125,000 pounds of donated food to the shelves of its Oxnard warehouse distribution center, the organization reported this week in a media release.
Ventura County residents on May 12 left bags of donated food next to their mailboxes. Letter carriers picked up and delivered the donations to local post office collection centers where they were sorted by volunteers and then transported to FOOD Share.
Volunteers from Famers Insurance, Stamp Out Hunger supporting sponsor, United Way and the National Charity League provided much-needed manpower to help unload the mail trucks and sort the food items, organizers reported.
“FOOD Share is extremely grateful to everyone who contributed to this year’s Stamp Out Hunger food drive,” Karen Jensen, FOOD Share’s food drive coordinator, reported in the media release. “Not only did our letter carriers and donors go above and beyond to help feed the hungry, there were dozens businesses and volunteers that pitched in behind the scenes to make the food drive an overwhelming success.”
Stamp Out Hunger is the nation’s largest one-day food drive. Now in its 20th year, the annual food drive has generated more than 1.1 billion pounds of food for the hungry.
FOOD Share currently feeds more than 74,500 people each month in Ventura County and distributes food to the public via 150 pantry partners and multiple programs.
About FOOD Share
FOOD Share, Ventura County’s only regional food bank, distributes millions of pounds of food each year to those in need. FOOD Share provides food year-round to more than 74,500 Ventura County children, adults, seniors and families each month via more than 150 Ventura County pantry partner agencies and multiple programs.
FOOD Share’s many programs include the Senior Brown Bag supplemental nutrition program that provides supplemental groceries to nearly 2,000 low income seniors throughout Ventura County, the Senior Nutrition Program providing home delivered meals to homebound seniors in Oxnard and Ventura, and the Kids’ Farmers’ Markets that offer nutrition education, healthy recipe preparation, taste testing and a farmers’ market free fresh produce “shopping experience” to children in Ventura County afterschool programs.
In 2011, FOOD Share partnered with Ventura County’s Human Services Agency to provide expanded CalFresh enrollment assistance. CalFresh, formerly called food stamps, is the largest federal nutrition assistance program that provides supplemental nutrition assistance to eligible Ventura County residents.
For more information: call 805-983-7100 or go to www.foodshare.com